In 1992, the United Nations General Assembly designated 17 October as International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Ever since, this day has been observed worldwide in order to raise awareness of poverty eradication issues, particularly in developing countries.

In order to achieve the Millenium Summit goal of halving the proportion of people living in poverty by 2015, IFAD has been emphasizing increased focus on and investment in agriculture in developing countries. To achieve rapid, sustainable poverty reduction, the rural poor need better access to assets such as land, technology, markets, health, education and economic services such as credit and savings.

One example of IFADs intervention is in China, where the Fund began operations in 1981. To date IFAD has supported 16 projects in the country, a number of them cofinanced by the World Food Programme (WFP) and rural credit cooperatives. Each new project has sought to support an average of 300 000 households. These projects have a number of special features:

• strong village participation in planning and implementation;
• skills training and microcredit to promote income-generating activities; and
• gender focal points to ensure that the specific needs of women and men are addressed.

One of these projects, the Southwest Anhui Integrated Agricultural Development Project, was visited by the President of IFAD, Mr Lennart Båge, on 14-15 October 2002. Cue Zue, a project participant living in Fung Xian village in Zhaong Guang township, had previously described her life:

Cui, who is 40, has been married for 16 years and is the family breadwinner. The family has been facing hard times because of poor production from their land. When she heard about the project, she decided to apply for credit to raise pigs. First she had to discuss
the loan with the village leaders’ group. Two months later she obtained a loan of CNY 1 000. She was able to raise and sell a sufficient number of pigs to repay the loan in one year. Having started with one pig, today she has 12. The piglets are sold for CNY 150 when they are two months old. She is pleased with this new income and has used the extra cash to open a shop that stocks items for daily use. She earns on average CNY 200-300 per month from the shop and plans to expand the business. Her two sons go to school. Cui says: “This is like a dream come true. After finishing primary school, my sons must go for secondary school”. The boys are now 15 and 12, and she would like them eventually to work in town. “We were very poor and when my sons were in primary school we found it hard to keep them in school as there was no money to buy food. Now it is different.” She laughs and adds, “Now there is no shortage of food and I can also say there is no shortage of money. Today I have the same standard of living as people who are better off in this area”. The neighbours admire her and would like to follow her example. She is in fact known as the star of the village.